In my younger days,I was so quick to say “cool,I want one” and before I even came up with a need for it, i’d zlready have one on order. Bought so much useless junk that way. I stopped doing that years back.
I think in this case, I might make an exception. I design stuff for a living, but it’s all (or mostly) mechanical. Just to mess around more with the electronics side of things, I might build one eventually.
Oooo this looks cool as hell! I’ve always wanted to design my own robotic arm but the electronics part always intimidated me.
The link that OP mentioned looks like they are trying to sell you various components. Also the gripper is a separate item altogether. While it says it is Open, if yiu have to buy that PCB, it seems less interesting. I figured it would be running off a raspberry Pi or something like that.
I’ve made a few logos. One of them I used to make a stamping die that deformed some sheet metal. Worked shockingly well.
I’ve also made a simple phone mount and a lens for the glovebox. My ultimate plan is to make the housing for new headlights, but lack of time and wanting to scan rather than measure the sheetmetal opening has slowed me down on that project.
I’ll tell you what, using that points distributor on my Lulzbot has sped up printing considerably! Unfortunately the print nozzle connected to the 401 nailhead sure makes the Buick hard to start.
Determine how big the parts need to be. Print volume will dictate a lot and eliminate a ton of printers. I liked the Raise3D printer I had. Large volume. Fully enclosed. The nozzle will be important for food grade stuff. I’ve never really needed to worry about food grade, so I can’t help you there, but never trust any cheapo Chinesium nozzle.
Interesting. I’ve been using the same cheapo iron for years and years now but if I ever need to replace it, I’d probably at least consider one of these. Quick search on Amazon shows them for like $85. So not cheap, but not bonkers either.
Interesting. I have a stock pile of filament that I need to burn through first, but I might consider that moving forward.
I think at some point the community should consider simply buying pellets and going straight from pellets to the printer’s extruder (no interim filament to make). Pellets are roughly 1/10th the cost of filament so the savings are there, but that’s also usually at larger quantities.
I know some large format printer’s exist already that use pellets amd that therr are filament extruder out there, but I feel that’s the trend for regular hobby grade printer’s eventually.
But he can learn. And if he gets it going, and the other components are OK, he could transfer it onto a metal frame. He could use this printer to print parts for some new printer build that was made from parts of this current build.
Just as a heads up,you claim to say that speed and size is not important, but trust me, speed and size is always important for 3D printers. Minimum size (except for unique situations) should be around 8"/200 mm cube. For speed, I think the Voron kit was (one of) the fastest ones out there. Now your budget won’t allow for one of those printers, but they are a good way to compare the ones you are considering.
3d printers haven’t changed that much. If you can get some info from your brother and he can tell you what might be wrong (if anything) that would be very helpful.
Most 3D printers really don’t draw a lot of power, but be aware that smart plugs are usually limited to 15 A. Some might be just 10 A. If you are thinking about using a smart plug to control your printer (and be sure it’s off) just look at the rating of the power supply of the printer ahead of time.
The actual number is mostly meaningless. If you have adhesion problems just bump the set temp up by a few degrees. Also the temp will vary across the plate but also vary over time. As the heat soaks into the plate it will be more consistent across it so if there are hot spots now, it’s not a huge deal.
Get a Prusa but maybe not the mini unless you can’t expand your budget or very tight on space. Some of the big limitations of 3D printing is size and speed. You claim to not care about speed, but trust me, you will. In terms of size, a smaller print volume really limits what can be printed. Some will claim that it’s no big deal because you can glue pieces together and that is partially accurate, but at some point you’re just going to want to print something in one piece and not have to endlessly assemble it from many small pieces. If you have the space and budget get the larger Prusa model.
Is kodi something equivalent to retroach or something like that? Any good resources you have used that explain how to set It up?